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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352102">Sharpen Your Knife</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes'>lesbianettes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chicago Med</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(not graphic), Angst, Apocalypse, Birth Defects, Character Death, Cults, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Manipulation, Nuclear Fallout, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Radiation Sickness, radiation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:56:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crockett meant well.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Jimmy Lanik/Crockett Marcel/Noah Sexton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sharpen Your Knife</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <a href="https://neworleansspecial.tumblr.com/post/633695451333459968/suggested-listening-for-syk">Suggested Listening</a>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He remembers the first time he tasted it on his lips. The sweat and grit and blood that comes with the horror that is the far reaching desolation. He does what it takes to protect those he cares about, and still, the nightmares haunt him without any care for why he made the hard choices he did. They’re simple in the way they recognize his pain at every scream, but complex in their disconnect from the reality hoping to burn him alive, and instead turn him into the arsonist. Every night, he tries to explain that it wasn’t his fault. It feels like it was anyways.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before she can charge too close, Crockett wipes the blood off his face. She doesn’t need it on her tiny mouth when she smacks an affectionate kiss to his cheek, the way children are wont to do when it comes to parents who have been gone too long. Some of the others are like this too. But their parents don’t always come back. As hard as he tries to protect them, it doesn’t mean all that much when some people are ready to give up on the struggle of staying alive. Every time, he reminds them they have children waiting. That rarely actually helps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, princess,” he says, lifting her off the ground and settling her onto his hip. As expected, she kisses his cheek, closer to his nose than his ear. “What’ve you been working on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She points to the food patch April supervises. A couple other young children like Harper carry on with plucking ripe berries from their stems. Crockett remembers, when he was younger even than them, a time when strawberries fit comfortably in between the thumb and forefinger, and often left stains of bright red juice left to stain them. The things that pass for strawberries now are more of a dark maroon, small and sour with the effects of the radiation on their radiation. The same thing that put the pale film over one of Harper’s eyes, that turned April’s blood a sickening brown, that makes Crockett’s boots fit strange over his feet, has stolen a food full of gentling childhood memories from him, and he is well aware that he will never get them back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you were helping Miss April?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harper nods enthusiastically and does not say more. Someone said that by three, she ought to talk more than a toddling near-infant, but there’s not much Crockett can do about it. He’s out often, hunting for food or protecting their territory, and she spends much of the day with April or one of the others who look after the children. It’s not that she can’t understand speech; she knows what’s being said to her for the most part, and she communicates with himself and April nonverbally. He doesn’t have much interest in forcing his baby girl to speak if she’s not ready. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She reaches out toward the food patch. Toward April. The blindness in her left eye makes depth perception hard for her sometimes. Crockett carries her closer anyways, until her little hand can touch April’s shoulder. She doesn’t want April to hold her, they both know- she’s missed Crockett far too much to be handed back over, but she loves and wants to be close to the woman raising her, and who she must recognize on some level as the woman who brought her into the world and held against her chest until she was big enough to stomach real food. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She loves her mommy,” Crockett teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>April makes a face at that; she doesn’t see herself that way. Yes she brought Harper into this poor world, and takes care of her, but she says that being a mother makes her sad. Guilty. So it’s just April to all the children, including Harper, who is solely Crockett’s child as far as April or anyone else is concerned. One of the other caretakers had wanted to abandon the babe, after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, she loves her daddy,” April counters, and picks a handful more berries for her basket. “We saved you some food from the midday meal, if you’re hungry.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always come home hungry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she laughs, and Crockett goes to the meal area to find a cloth covered bowl that must be for him. It’s a meager portion, as all of them are, but as he situates Harper on his lap, he recognizes she’s smaller than the other children and feeds her around a quarter of the ration of stew. The only flavor is the saltiness inherent to the meat. They cut away the rot on the food he brought home yesterday, and this must be the salvage. Hunting today was poor. All he did was defend their little homestead and leave the bodies to the animals and the people who have given up humanity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor watches him share his food with Harper and shakes his head. He was the one who wanted her gone. April alleges he tried to take her away in the night, but Crockett won’t believe that in fear he’ll forget these people are the only reason he has his daughter, and that both of them are alive to see the next day. He looks about to make some comment about the dangers of giving away his food, but then Elsa calls him away to look at a lesion on her palm. Some people’s bodies are better attuned to the radiation, like April and Connor and some of the babes. Some, like Elsa, are simply counting down the days until they eyes glow green like in the stories, and they collapse with foam at the mouth. Most who catch sick from the fallout will beg for death before it gets there, though, and the collective is inclined to agree. It is better to simply end their misery. Most can withstand the sickness until their thirties. Some succumb before their tenth birthday. The oldest person here is pushing sixty, and watched the world end around him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In all likelihood, Harper will die young. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is for this very reason that he holds her so close to his body and gives most of what he has to her. Any time he may spend with his little girl is time worth starving for. The hunger pangs are nothing he is incapable of, especially given that any small ready-to-eat he stumbles on during a patrol is fair game. When he loots a body, he might find an apple, or a pouch of nuts, he is more than welcome to them for his sacrifice of committing the murder. Big items are brought  back to camp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Connor, no! Please don’t!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sets Harper down, leaving her with a kiss to the top of her head before following Elsa’s cry to the medical room, one of the few small structures here, where she disappeared with Connor to look at the lesion. When he gets there, Connor is holding her wrist against the table in one hand, brandishing a saw with the other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Connor!” he says sharply. “What the fuck are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Elsa has tears on her cheeks as she tries for what seems like the hundredth time to get away from him. “He’s trying to cut off my arm!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She has a third degree lesion.” The look Connor offers is stern and no-nonsense. “If I don’t remove the hand, it’ll expand. She’ll lose her whole arm eventually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eventually!” Elsa repeats. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes are filled with genuine terror. Regardless of what Connor thinks is best in the long run, it is Elsa’s body, Elsa’s arm, Elsa’s life, and he understands her fear at the prospect of anything that could impact her usefulness. Useless mouths to feed don’t last long. He, like always, sides with the person as opposed to Connor, and pries his hand off of Elsa, causing her to draw her arm close against her chest protectively immediately. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just bandage her up. Don’t be an asshole.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett stays to make sure that’s all Connor does, and follows Elsa out so she can go back to her post. She shoots down the rare birds, and keeps watch for anyone missed by patrol who thinks they can sneak close enough to steal or kill. It feels so different from the safety Crockett vaguely remembers in a two-story southern home, his mom’s arms around him and his siblings laughing. Where they are now is a question he’s too scared to answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he returns, Harper has found her way back to the food patch to help pick berries. April gives Crockett a small nod. She understands what he had to do. She always does. The same way she understood that he was not there when she bled and screamed and brought another life into this hell, and the same way she understands that he cannot dull the nightmares that wake him screaming every single night, and the same way he understands why she curls up in a shared sleep-space with Sarah. They are a comfort to one another entirely, and it makes Crockett wish he had someone willing to hold him so completely. Maybe then the nightmares wouldn’t hurt so bad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was out there today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett thinks of a way to regale his patrol without frightening the children. He killed six intruders in the throes of madness from radiation, and shot down an animal so rotted it could barely walk. Putting these things down is an act of mercy. But it isn’t a pretty reality, and so he dumbs it down by saying he scared off some big animals (the children cheer) and started searching for new hunting grounds. That second part is somewhat true; the rot is coming closer, so he’ll have to go further to find safe meat to keep them all going. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harper claps her hands in excitement at knowing he’s doing something much cooler than simply picking food or pushing soil around over seeds. She has made it clear in her short life that she longs to know what’s beyond the compound, not understanding the dangers out there or the fact that she’s simply too little to withstand them. He wishes he could show her something good, as his parents once did. Unfortunately, he knows too well there is nothing good out there waiting for them, only worse death and destruction than permeates this place. He refuses to do that to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He picks her up again and she snuggles into his side, pressing her face against his pec and grabbing onto the loose parts of his shirt to better hold on. In seconds, Harper falls asleep. April says she won’t rest when he’s gone, which makes him feel even guiltier for his absences, but he does it in order to protect her and the others. The nightmares are worth it. She sleeps peacefully in his arms, like his hip is the most comfortable bed in the world. For someone so small, it may be when she’s used to scratchy blankets on the hard-packed dirt for rest. There was a time when April said he was comfortable. When Sarah isn’t around, Crockett often serves as April’s pillow just as much as Harper’s mattress to keep them as safe and comfortable as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no one for him to lay on, not now, not ever. Even when he was little, his parents were gone in the first wave of radiation sickness, leaving him sleeping in trees and concrete buildings until this little stronghold found him and took him in. The collective protected Crockett when he could not do so for himself. Now he returns the favor even when his skin is covered in lesions beneath his clothes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor would put him out of his misery for it, he thinks, but he will not leave when he can still do some good for these people and above all else, his daughter. So long as she draws her rattling breath, so will he. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m out again tomorrow,” he tells April. “North quadrant. If I’m lucky I’ll bring back food.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She ruffles his hair affectionately in a long-standing promise to look after Harper while he’s gone, as well as a reminder that people care whether or not he makes it back home in the wake of the day. There are plenty who don’t. There are times he leaves a trail of blood behind him before collapsing within the borders of home and wakes up bandaged by Connor’s steady hands and cleaned by April’s gentle washing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no other option.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harper squirms and Crockett adjusts his hold on her until she settles once more. Her rest, even in his comfort, is often maladjusted and unhappy. She hurts. Not in a way he can see, or she will ever communicate, but enough to make sleep difficult and walking a chore for her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy,” she whines in her sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shushes her and rocks her slightly, hoping to calm her back down, the poor thing. Luckily she has not developed even the rashes yet. But they’re coming, he can almost sense it, the same way he can taste in the air when the clouds of acidic rain are coming to wash away their meager food supply. He rubs her back and wishes he could provide her a softer blanket to swaddle in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sleeps through the night, only waking when Crockett gets up the following morning with the sun to go on his patrol. Immediately her dark eyes fill with tears and she clings tighter to him, making him wish he could bring her with him without fear, but it is for the best that she remains here, where he can nearly guarantee her safety and her protection with April. He picks his way over other sleeping bodies to hand her to April and kisses the top of both their heads goodbye. Just in case. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes his slingshot, rough hewn spear, and the knife someone before him saved when the world all went to shit. It’s not much. It’s enough. He’s careful all day, as always, and gets something that might have once been a fox without much rot, taking a midday break to return it to the collective before he goes back on patrol. Besides, coming home gives him access to a quick drink of water to combat the dehydration that comes with the job. Harper cries out for him to hold her, which he does while he drinks his water, before he has to leave her once more. At least he got to see her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s near the end of the day that he runs into another person out in the wilds. Usually the people he meets are full of rot and either begging to be put down or charging him like beasts. This is different. There’s two men and a woman, relatively clean considering, and without any visible lesions on their pristine skin. They’re so perfect that at first, Crockett thinks they must be completely imagined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, though, one of them, the man with the earth-toned skin and short hair speaks. “We’re here to help you. We’re with the relief shelter. My name is Noah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What relief shelter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blonde woman points behind her shoulder with her thumb. “The only one within a hundred miles. We’re looking for survivors. Are you alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a step back and considers how far the run to camp is, and if he’d be able to take three of them down before one of them gets a good strike on him. He’d need to use his knife and be impossibly fast. But as soon as he reaches for it, the man with green eyes pulls out one of his own in a vaguely threatening manner. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re not trying to hurt you, sir,” he says carefully. “I’m James. This is Ava. And Noah already introduced himself. We’re here to help you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not sick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah takes the lead again. “No, we’re not. We have medicine that helps, and shelter, and good food. We can take you, and anybody with you, back with us and share that with you. Do you have a family? Friends?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If what they say is true, Crockett can’t afford to say no. He’s well aware that his days are numbered, and those things would be invaluable for Harper. While he’s not yet confident enough to just go with them, he’s optimistic enough to hope, something that he had stopped doing so long ago that it feels almost frightening as it courses through his chest. This could be life-changing. He nods slowly and glances behind him to the south. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can ask if they want to join you. Where can we meet again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let us come with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett shakes his head. “No outsiders. I’m really supposed to kill anyone this close.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James’ hand, the one holding his knife, twitches, so Crockett adjusts his hold on his own. Noah throws his arm out against James’ chest in response, holding him from coming closer and escalating the situation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can meet you again here, tomorrow. Or if you think this will be short, we’ll wait,” Noah says calmly. “No one needs to fight. But we’re here to help you, okay? Do you have someone you care about? A brother, a sister? A friend?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A daughter,” he says. He doesn’t mean to. “Her name is Harper. She’s- she needs help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can help Harper. Just let us know what you decide?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett nods. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaves, then, fully intending to come back. Even if the group doesn’t want to go, he needs to bring Harper to them. She needs this. Maybe he’s too trusting, maybe he’s irrational, but she needs to be treated before she rots, she needs food, she needs to be protected. He’d do anything if it meant she could have those things. Nothing is as important to him as her. He thinks about her wrapped in a proper blanket as he returns home, illuminated by real lights and not campfire flames, smiling and playing with toys that aren’t rocks found in the dirt. Her little smile would be so much brighter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dinner is being served when he returns, everyone gathered around. It’s perfect. He clears his throat as Harper calls for him and begins squirming to reach his arms. Before continuing, Crockett scoops her up into his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I found other survivors,” he announces.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor rolls his eyes. “So?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were healthy. No radiation sickness, no starvation- hell, they were barely dirty. They said they have a shelter with medicine, and they were looking for people like us. It was- it was a rescue party.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone gives him the sad, close to empty look that he decodes like it’s second nature. They don’t believe him. Why would they? He sounds crazy even to his own ears. But this is something, enough of a chance that he knows he’ll go, with or without them, although preferably with. April gives him a sad, pitying look. Not even she believes him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re waiting for our answer. This is our chance. We could go-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Crockett, honey…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head. “Don’t ‘honey’ me, sugar. I’m going. Y’all should know that we all could, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think about Harper.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before the discussion can turn into an argument, there’s a loud sound to Crockett’s right. He turns to it just in time to recognize it as some kind of metal canister before it’s shrouded by some sort of fog coming from it. Instinct sends him down, shielding Harper beneath his chest while being careful not to crush her. He pulls his shirt over his mouth and nose, then helps her do the same while she begins to cry, scared and confused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, baby. We’re gonna be okay. Daddy’s here. It’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes shut before his and he starts to panic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, no, you’ve gotta stay awake. Stay awake for me, Harper, it’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His consciousness doesn’t last long enough for him to do much else besides move enough to the side that he won’t smother her when he collapses. He reaches for her little hand. Crockett doesn’t reach her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next time he wakes up, he’s in a room, a real room like he’s not been in since he was small. It’s brightly illuminated with bluish-white lights, and a real bed is soft beneath his body except for where a rope ties his midsection down. There are padded restraints on his wrists too. He won’t be able to get out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He struggles a little, chest tight with panic, looking around him for anything else in the room. His baby, mostly. But Harper is not here. Nothing is, just his bed and a square machine that trails wires toward him. That’s how he notices the way they disappear under his shirt, and must be responsible for the warmth spread across his chest. He wants them off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>About a minute later, Ava comes in, her hair pulled into intricate braids and a bleached white coat around her body. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do? Where’s Harper?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She reaches out to comfort him, but he turns his face away too quickly, forcing her to speak if she wants to interact. “She’s in another room, we’re giving her food.” Ava reaches for the restraints. “These were just a precaution, but you don’t seem like a threat, so I’m going to let you out, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava carefully removes each restraint until he’s able to move on his own, and she helps him pull off the little monitors across his chest, seemingly unphased by the way someone shaved small patches of his chest for them to connect to his skin properly. That feels like more of a violation than being taken away in the first place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who else did you take?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone,” Ava answers. “We’re trying to rebuild society, and maybe this isn’t the best way to do it, but it’s how we function here. We find people, we bring them in, we help them. We’ve given you six doses so far on our radiation protocol. Harper’s received three. Your friend, April, has received four. She woke up about an hour ago. Once we’re sure that you won’t remove it, we intend to put in a medication pump to deliver it automatically.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harper?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s too little. We’ll give her doses manually every twelve hours, but she’ll likely no longer need it within a year. She’s so young that she’ll heal on her own within two or three. You’ll likely need it for at least a decade, possibly more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I’m not that sick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava raises one eyebrow and gestures at the countless bandages spread across his torso, undoubtedly aware of the others across his body. The lesions. Connor would classify them as fourth degree, probably, and he’s been rotting in his boots long enough that Ava points out crutches leaning against the wall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re trying to help you, just keep that in mind. Now, do you want to come see your daughter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She helps him stand, the crutches propped under his arms to help keep some of his weight off his feet, presumably to help them heal. They take a few minutes to go down the hall to an elevator, and then down a couple floors before they cross another hallway and into a large room with a few kids. A lot of them are clearly radiated. Their bodies are built differently, with some limbs twisted or the wrong number of fingers on their chubby hands. Harper is among them. She’s playing with a little stuffed animal, soft and brightly colored, while one hand shovels a crunchy beige cereal into her mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy!” she screams around her food, and drops the toy and food to reach for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He makes his way to her and sits down on the floor so she can clamber into his lap. She’s safe. She smells like soft things, like baby shampoo he hasn’t seen since the stores were ransacked to emptiness, like fruit, like safety. Maybe he made the right choice. She shows him her toy and he sits there, playing with her, until Ava comes and tells him he needs to eat and get his next dosage of medicine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My daughter-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’ll still be here, I promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett means to ask why he can’t simply bring Harper with him, but the next thing he knows, he’s following Ava to another level, another room, once more. This new one shows people he’s familiar with- Elsa, April, Sarah, Noah, James, some of the others from home- and new faces of varying levels of gauntness that suggest they’ve come from a variety of places and been here for different amounts of time. Noah sits at a desk with tall shelves on either end of it, but everyone else seems to be simply lounging. They read, or talk, or draw. Crockett doesn’t think he knows how to read. April certainly doesn’t, but she’s listening to one of the women Crockett doesn’t recognize read aloud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“50 milligrams,” Ava says, and Noah hands her a needle. Crockett flinches and reaches to his hip for a knife that must have been confiscated, acting on instinct alone. There’s no weapon, of course. She takes his arm and rolls up his sleeve to push in the needle, not reacting to his flinch or whimper of pain as she slowly injects the medicine into his body, not at all concerned with the pain he’s in or the way it feels like liquid fire running through his body. Luckily, the sensation disappears rather quickly. “That’s what you need every six hours,” she explains. “With a pump on your arm, it’ll push small amounts more regularly, making it more comfortable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He seriously doubts that anything will ever make that sensation more comfortable, but he chooses not to argue with her, instead going to join April in listening to the woman read. She wears a lab coat like Ava’s. Her eyes are smaller, lighter, and she has a kindness about her that sets Crockett at ease for reasons he can’t explain. She does, however, have the same long, delicate fingers as April, so careful as they turn the pages of the book. Perhaps that’s what does it. Either way, he sits calmly and listens to her voice as it wraps around what turns out to be a story about a princess’ desperate trials to save her prince, and has the sort of simplicity to it that makes him think it may actually be a children’s story to ease them into learning written language. It wouldn’t be the worst thing they’ve done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>April leans into him so close that her lips brush his ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They wouldn’t let me see the kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A chill runs through him; was that the last moment he had with his little girl? If he had known, he would have hugged her tighter. “I just saw Harper. She’s alright. Happy. She was playing and eating with the others. Well. One of ours and a bunch of other kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman stops reading. “The children are safe. We’re just keeping contact limited to parents right now, so they can better adjust to the environment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett goes quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m Hannah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t answer her. Telling these people things got them all abducted. Instead he studies April, and notices that her hair is shorter by a few inches, leaving it to stop by her chin as opposed to her shoulders, and looks shiny as opposed to matted with dirt. She must have had a bath, a nice one with soap. Crockett touches his own face to find it clean shaven, and his hair is softer than he ever remembers it being. They bathed him, then. Possibly April too. And all of them. He wraps his arms around himself protectively and regrets it all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They said you were sick,” April says, clearly now ignoring Hannah. “Why didn’t you tell me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What good would it do? You’d worry. Connor would find out and put me down. My daughter would have no father.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your group practiced Euthanasia?” Hannah asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They ignore her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If they gave you crutches, walking must have been painful. We’d have found you something to do that wasn’t patrol.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who would patrol then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>April doesn’t have a response to that, so they lapse into silence. Before long, Hannah starts reading to them again. It makes Crockett think of his mother’s low voice when he was just old enough to listen to it, even if Hannah sounds nothing like her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loses track of time until his next dose- six hours have passed? Then they’re herded into a cafeteria sort of room where there’s plenty of food. Proper food. There’s a slab of meat with grill marks on his plate, and mashed potatoes, and green vegetables. None of it tastes like rot. It’s so good that he, and most of the others from the collective, clear their plates in moments. There are no seconds, but no one asks, anyways- as far as they’re aware, there is no reason to believe there’s extra food, even if Crockett sees James bringing Noah an extra plate and kissing his cheek at another table. None of the children are here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cafeteria, he realizes once he’s not focused on his food, is above ground, unlike much of the rest of the structure they seem to live in. There’s a handful of windows. Nowhere else had those. The thick acrylic shows desolate, sandy brown-grey land, peppered with shrubbery and corpses. He misses it, oddly enough. The fresh, if irradiated air, blowing against his face and ruffling his hair. The air in here just feels so still. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beside him, Sarah and April are holding hands under the table, white-knuckled. They must be scared. He reaches for April and, much to his surprise, she takes his hand in hers and holds on just as tightly until everyone finishes their food and starts to bring the plates to a conveyor belt that goes to another room, probably so they can be washed and reused. He tries to see where it disappears to, but it’s hard to see beyond the dark place where they disappear, and when he looks too hard, a hand settles on his shoulder and he flinches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suggest not snooping around,” Noah says behind him. His hand is warm. “You won’t always like what you find.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that a threat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah’s hand moves from his shoulder to one of his crutches, holding it in such a way that Crockett must stay still if he wants to continue to use it, and he doesn’t have the leverage to use it as a weapon. It feels like a threat. He stands still and makes eye contact with April, willing her to stay just in case something happens here that’s out of Crockett’s control. He doesn’t want to be alone if he’s going to be killed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hesitates by the wall. Sarah stays with her. They both watch, and Crockett can almost feel Noah watching back, leaning so close that the warmth of his body leeches through the thin fabric on Crockett’s back and he knows Noah is close, he’s too close, and it feels so much like vulnerability that his heart is pounding and every instinct says to get Harper and run as far and fast as possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Noah says. “We’re trying to help you. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think this is a gift.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah lets go of his crutch, but it’s so that he can turn to see James. “You’re right, Crockett. A gift is letting you see your daughter. You do want to see her, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you dare lay a hand on her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s a child,” James says. “We would never.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett doesn’t point out that they were more than happy to abduct said child, along with countless others based on the numbers he saw in the nursery room where Ava took him to see his child and know she’s alright. He very nearly asks to see her again before thinking it will be more trouble than likely to actually bring him to his daughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He follows April and Sarah to an area that appears to be for rest, lined with real beds, some stacked on top of each other. Each is plain. Crockett takes one near the door on the bottom bunk and slides his crutches beneath it, propping his head up on the pillow. In another life, he might consider the mattress to be too thin or the pillow too limp, but he has spent the last couple decades on the floor, and as such, is more than grateful for the semblance of creature comforts. A nice, warm blanket is life-changing and he’s asleep almost before he shuts his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sleep is, of course, less than restful. It always is, save for whatever comes with the false chemical coma they pressed him into when they staged their mass-abduction. He is not afforded such peace. Instead, he dreams, heavy and clearly, of the murders he has performed in the name of public good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A young woman with half a head of pretty red hair grabs onto his throat in her desperate clawing for everything and nothing. He can’t get her off of him. This was some three days prior, and he had to saw off her hand- or at least start to- in order to free himself. She screams but attacks again. A fool. A poor woman. He means to put her out of her misery but it’s hard when he looks into her eyes and sees fear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his dream, she begs him for mercy, for life. He gives her mercy by slitting her throat, and then he wakes up in a cold sweat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day is very much the same, and the day after that. Crockett gets his food and his medicine, and once a day he gets a checkup from Ava before being allowed to spend some time with Harper, who seems healthier by the day. Her cheeks seem rosier. Her eyes brighter. She smiles bigger too, and Ava tells him that when she’s bigger they might be able to give her vision in her left eye. What a beautiful thing, his daughter’s potential health. Crockett might just cry over it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does cry a little, though he doesn’t mean to, when he’s taken away from her again. James’ words ring in his ears constantly with their threat to hold her out of his reach. Crockett can handle any mortification of his flesh, any pain, any torture, but he cannot withstand the thought of losing his little girl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, he’s seen by Noah and James in a new room, one with a couch he’s directed to and two chairs that the other men take without even considering which one belongs to whom. Noah looks comforting and comfortable, in an orange-red sweater and dark loose pants, while James wears a button down, lab coat, and slacks that put so much distance between them that his very presence feels stifling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We wanted to talk to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then talk,” Crockett says stiffly. He doesn’t trust them so far as his arms can reach. “Or let me go to the rec room to see April.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You care about April?’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James talks the same way Hannah does. He repeats things they’ve said, or variations thereof, with a questioning intonation at the end to suggest the idea that they’re confirming something. Doing something with every piece of information. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want from us?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah looks about to speak, but defers to James, who shrugs and begins. “We’re social scientists, Crockett, just as much as Ava is a medical doctor and this place is a shelter. We’re studying how society fragmented. And your settlement is- was- very fascinating to us.” James leans forward. “You grew food. You practiced medicine. You looked after people. Asher tells us you euthanized. That’s far closer to the pre-fallout society than we’ve seen before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were only surviving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were thriving,” Noah counters. “You had a much higher survival rate and average age than any other society we’ve found.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett tugs at the bandages on his arm. “We were rotting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were living.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like he got close at dinner, Noah comes close and sits beside him. He touches his arm, his back. Palm flat between his shoulder blades. “What you were doing, not the group, but you, was incredible. I talked to people. You fed them all, protected them all. You raised your daughter. It must have been hard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was, but I did what I thought was best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you did a good job.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James sits on Crockett’s other side and cups his jaw, allowing his thumb to skate across his cheek. “You did incredible things, Crockett.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t know what’s happening. What they’re doing to him. What they have planned. So he is still when James “helps” him, and when Noah embraces him, and when the two of them take care of him in a way no one besides April on a soft spring morning often did. They take that memory from him in their touches. He stares at the wall until it is over, and allows a blanket to be tugged over him in this little office. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweet dreams, Crockett.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn’t possible for him to know which one of them says it, nor who turns off the lights to allow him to sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Days go hazy for a while, especially as the keep him from Harper. Ava puts the promised pump into his arm and fills him with medicine that slowly kills the radiation. She takes his crutches. Changes his bandages. No one hurts him, but they always do, and April stops asking after Harper eventually, knowing that Crockett doesn’t see her. He doesn’t entirely understand what’s happened. But he feels. He feels James’ palm on his leg and Noah’s lips on his throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I miss it,” he tells them at one of these little interviews where they write down everything he says and then “help” him relax and allow himself to be looked after in such a way. “It was hard, but I miss patrolling the sands and coming home to my daughter. I miss Harper and the strawberry patch and even the cooking. Is it strange to miss the things that were replaced by something better?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They ignore all mentions of Harper. “It’s normal to miss what you grew up on,” Noah tells him. “You didn’t know anything else until recently. Of course a huge adjustment leaves you longing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have longing to see my child.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett isn’t supposed to say that, but he does anyway. He wants his daughter back. He wants to hold her, to see if she truly is getting better like he is, like they say. If she’s dead he’d want to know, if she’s happy he’d want to know. She has been his anchor for a long time, and he hers, and this separation is the worst form of torture he could possibly endure with every passing day he doesn’t see her, feeling more like he’s falling apart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said you wouldn’t take her from me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one ever said that,” corrects James. “But we did say that seeing her was a gift. She’s not doing well, Crockett, and you wouldn’t be able to handle it, so we’re protecting you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants to scream. “If she’s sick, I have the right to see her. She must be scared, she must wonder where I am-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s been put to rest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart shatters. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They reach for him but he scrambles back, even if the couch traps him and he hurts his still healing lesions in his desperation to get away, to get somewhere, to get to his daughter in whatever way possible, unwilling to accept any comfort when they took her and did everything that he begged Connor not to. He can’t. He doesn’t want to live if he can’t live with Harper. He won’t do it. The second he’s able-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Crockett, I need you to listen to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never heard Noah sound so stern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think you understood what James said. Your daughter isn’t dead. She’s in a medically induced coma so she can heal better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You put my baby in a coma.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crockett doesn’t want whatever false comforts will be offered to him, any more than he wants to be here at all anymore. This is his mistake. But no one else ought to suffer for it. Least of all Harper, though he notes that even April and Connor and everyone else shouldn’t have to either. He asks to see her, sleeping or not, and James says no like the word was waiting on the tip of his tongue already. Desperate for an excuse to deny him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as always, Noah is the more temperate force, and cards his hands through Crockett’s hair before laying down the conditions on it. He must not touch, he must not complain, he must not cry. He must stand there quietly and observe his daughter as the doctors have placed her in a medical bay crib. Of course Crockett agrees, whatever the cost, and follows them to the place they say his daughter lies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava is there, and Connor too. Connor leans over Harper’s frail, sickly body, touching the tube sticking from her little mouth, adjusting it in a way that makes her gag even in sleep. She’s so small. A hurt sound bubbles up from Crockett’s mouth. He has to grab onto the edge of the crib to avoid scooping her up regardless of the wires and holding her as close to his chest as is physically possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We found lesions in her brain,” Connor says. He sounds much gentler than usual. “It was already too late.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. No, it isn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Crockett,” James warns. “Remember what we said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His soul is collapsing in his body. “You said she was resting to get better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re trying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Connor shakes his head and reaches to disconnect the large machine that seems to be breathing for Harper. In an instant, Crockett has him pinned, kneeling on his bent legs and holding him by the arms so he’s left kneeling and struggling, back to Crockett’s chest. He doesn’t know what he means to do, only that Noah stands in front of them and suddenly, Connor’s throat has opened in a grotesque facsimile of a smile, gushing blood down over Crockett’s hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t let go fast enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harper Marcel is a child,” Noah says to a panicking, dying body, putting his foot on Connor’s chest to hold him down. This sudden cruelty is much more characteristic of James, or even Ava, but Noah has always been the temperate one of the three. Not the killer. Connor chokes on some of his blood and stops struggling. “She’s a child we are trying to save. You don’t choose who is worth that, Connor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time his words have finished, Connor is dead. Or at least enough of the way that he stays still where he is. Crockett only looks away from him at all to look back at Harper, and her small body lying too still in the crib. His baby. He breaks the rule to stroke her face, the first time that blood mars her skin. He was so careful before. Now, he doesn’t know that he will have another chance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>James sweeps the cane held in Crockett’s other hand with his foot, forcing Crockett to grab onto Harper’s crib if he doesn’t want to fall over. They gave him the cane. Now he relies on it. Everything that has happened has been a weakening, to the point where he is powerless to stop anything they do anymore. He wants to scream. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he can only allow himself, bloody and half in shock, to be dragged away by Noah and James to the little room where they lay him out and pick his brain and body to pieces. There, Noah cleans his hands of the blood for him. James brushes his hair. They both know him more intimately than even April did by now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re helping,” Noah says gently. “We are, even if it doesn’t feel like it. We’re trying to rebuild, Crockett, you of all people must understand what that means.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My baby,” he whispers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah shushes him and kisses his temple. “Crockett, we’re doing everything we can. But she was born by two irradiated parents, and she’s been very sick for a very long time. It’s not simple.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ava said she was getting better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As much as a sickly child could,” counters James. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just shakes his head. No. He won’t allow this. He can’t. He wants it all to just be over. He hides his face behind his now clean hands and allows himself to finally cry, knowing that he brought this pain and death by not giving a proper, outright dismissal to the three of them when they first came upon his world and offered something too good to be true. Connor is dead. Harper will die. April is nearly turning into them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jimmy, I think he needs another dose,” Noah says gently. “He’s afraid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>James gives him some of the radiation medication. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like that, Crockett’s worries seem to drift, and he falls into a dreamless sleep with his head in Noah’s lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harper dies three days later. Crockett does not see her in that time, but Noah and James and Ava allow him to hold her body for nearly sixteen hours. When they initially refused, he screamed and cried and, as a matter of fact, bit James’ hand so hard for attempting an intimate comfort that he can’t move three of his fingers anymore. Ava says they may not ever heal. Crockett thinks they should have done more, done better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is small in his arms. He sees the weight she had gained at first in the elasticity of her skin, and that which she immediately lost in how it is loose it is around her frame, more like a blanket than the towel they had wrapped around her when Ava placed Harper in Crockett’s arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He brushes her little curls off her face again. She has April’s cupid’s bow lips, but his looser curls than her mother’s tight ringlets. They will never grow to proper lengths. She will never learn April’s intricate braids. Her hands will never become big enough to hold a bow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hasn’t fully set in yet, he thinks. He is far more caught up in the pain of her stillness than the idea that she’s dead; he knows just enough to be aware that something has ended. That something being his daughter’s life has yet to fully set in. It hurts, though. It hurts that she doesn’t curl into his chest and pull at his shirt and say “Daddy,” the only word permanent to her vocabulary. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s been hours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, he holds her for as long as he can, until someone grabs him by the throat and pries her body away such that he can do nothing about it. Tears sting at his eyes. Pain claws at his throat. He screams some more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noah is the one who buries her outside, and who digs Crockett’s grave in wait.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tumblr @neworleansspecial</p></blockquote></div></div>
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